CHANGE YOUR WORLD
Opening Prayer
Loving Father, please give us God-sized dreams and the faith to partner with you in seeing them come to pass, in the mighty name of Jesus.
Read JOHN 1:43–51
For additional translations of the passage, use this link to Bible Gateway.
Jesus Calls Philip and Nathanael
43 The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, “Follow me.”
44 Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. 45 Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”
46 “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” Nathanael asked.
“Come and see,” said Philip.
47 When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, “Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.”
48 “How do you know me?” Nathanael asked.
Jesus answered, “I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.”
49 Then Nathanael declared, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel.”
50 Jesus said, “You believe[a] because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You will see greater things than that.” 51 He then added, “Very truly I tell you,[b] you[c] will see ‘heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on’[d] the Son of Man.”
Footnotes
New International Version (NIV)Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Reflect
Where is the place you most often choose to meditate on Scripture and pray? What about that space makes it your “go to” place?One of the charges politicians delight to level against each other when a proposed course of action is suddenly abandoned is that of performing a policy U-turn. Opponents seize on this as evidence of political weakness and/ or incompetence. Sometimes, however, a U-turn is the right and necessary response to compelling new insight.
Nathanael is presented here as a man well versed in the Scriptures. Seen as places of security and peace (e.g., Micah 4:4, Zechariah 3:10), rabbinic writing suggests it was common for Jewish men to sit under the shade of fig trees (v. 48) for their scriptural meditation and debates. Philip’s words (v. 45) pick up on Nathanael’s thinking (v. 46). His conviction that Israel’s Messiah could not possibly come from Nazareth (v. 46) is founded on his reading of the Law. That reading must be radically revised, however, when he encounters Jesus, who reads him incisively and who knows his position (vv. 47, 48). Nathanael’s U-turn is confirmed with his declaration that Jesus is indeed the ‘king of Israel’ (v. 49).
It is to Nathanael’s credit that he revises his reading of the written word in response to his encounter with the Word made flesh. His example reminds us that we should come to the Bible with humility, asking not so much, ‘What do I make of these words?’ but rather, ‘What does the living Word revealed here make of me?
Apply
Meditate on what God wants to make of you through your reading of his Word today.
Closing prayer
Father, open my mind and heart to receive what you have for me in your Word. Help me to not only understand what you say, but be willing to change direction wherever you ask it of me.
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